Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) suggested that the terror attack in New Orleans carried out by an American from Houston was the result of U.S. immigration policy.
Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, killed at least 14 people in the early hours of New Year’s Day when he drove a pickup truck down Bourbon Street, running over pedestrians. He subsequently died in a shootout with police. Officials say an Islamic State flag was found in the truck. Jabbar was a natural-born American citizen and a U.S. Army veteran
Early reporting by Fox News suggested the Jabbar had crossed the U.S. southern border, prompting some Republicans to blame the Biden administration’s immigration policy. Fox News has since retracted that report.
Despite no apparent connection to immigration whatsoever, that hasn’t stopped conservatives from using the attack to lash out at the Biden administration on the topic. That includes Johnson, who appeared on Thursday’s Kudlow on Fox Business to get some shots in.
After praising local authorities over their handling of the situation, the speaker decided that the federal government was to blame.
“For four years now, the Biden administration has taken its eye off the ball,” Johnson said. “They did not prioritize, in our view, the right things… They tried to convince us the greatest threat to the homeland was racially motivated extremism when we all looked at the wide open border and thought logically that might lead to terrorist attacks in the future. You know, we need a dramatic change.”
Hours earlier on Fox News, Johnson made similar misleading remarks about the attack.
